War in the Western Theater offers fresh perspectives on pivotal Civil War events, shedding light on overlooked battles and figures, revealing untold stories that reshape our understanding of this crucial region. The Western Theater has long been pushed to the side by events in the Eastern Theater, but it was in the West where the Federal armies won the Civil War. Interest in this complex region is finally increasing, and the authors at Emerging Civil War add substantially to that growing body of literature with War in the Western Theater: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War. Dozens of entries offer fresh and insightful aspects and angles to key events that unfolded between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Revisit an important Confederate charge at Shiloh, discover how key decisions won (and lost) the bloody fighting at Chickamauga, and ponder how whiskey may have impacted the fighting at Corinth. Readers will walk the battlefield at Fort Blakeley outside Mobile, fight in the hellish cedars at Stones River, and mourn with a Mississippi family. Insights abound. How many students of the war knew a Confederate major, watching the riverine bombardment of Fort Donelson up close and personal, rushed to send detailed sketches of the ironclads to Gen. Robert E. Lee to warn him of this new way of fighting—and the lethal dangers it portended? And these are just a taste of what’s waiting inside. The selections herein bring together the best scholarship from Emerging Civil War’s blog, symposia, and podcast, revised and updated, together with original pieces designed to shed new light and insight on some of the most important and fascinating events that have for too long flown under the radar of history’s pens.

In "The Civil War in the Wester Theater, 1862," author Charles R. Bowery Jr. examines the campaigns and battles that occurred during 1862 in the vast region between the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Mississippi River in the west, and from the Ohio River in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. Notable battles discussed include Mill Springs, Kentucky; Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee; Shiloh, Tennessee; Perryville, Kentucky; Corinth and Iuka, Mississippi; and Stones River, Tennessee. "

Includes 8 maps and numerous other illustrations The Mississippi River had figured prominently in the North’s strategic planning from the outset of the war. In May 1861, then-General in Chief of the U.S. Army Winfield Scott had drafted the so-called Anaconda Plan. Scott had proposed that the Federal armed forces squeeze the life out of the Confederacy by blockading the Southern coastline and launching an amphibious thrust down the Mississippi. He had argued that his plan would end the war with minimal bloodshed, conveniently ignoring the fact that it would take years for the North to build a sufficient navy. President Abraham Lincoln thought the Anaconda Plan had merit, but he knew that the Army would have to play a far more active role than Scott had envisioned—especially in Kentucky and Missouri—where Unionist and secessionist forces were already maneuvering for power. Lincoln was determined not only to keep the two crucial border states in the Union, but to rescue eastern Tennessee. One senator, Andrew Johnson, and one congressman, Horace Maynard, from that region remained in Washington to represent their Unionist supporters. On 4 August, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, the Army of the Potomac’s new commander, presented his own strategic plan for the West that accorded with Lincoln’s wishes yet proved more elaborate. He recommended a grand campaign involving two western armies—one based in Kentucky and the other in Missouri. The first army would divide into two columns in order to capture eastern Tennessee and Nashville. They would reunite at Chattanooga and proceed to Atlanta and then Montgomery, Alabama. After gaining control of Missouri, the second army would launch an amphibious expedition down the Mississippi River and seize New Orleans. All that remained was for the president to find generals willing and able to put these ambitious plans into action.

"In this first biography of the general in more than twenty years, Miller offers a new original perspective, directly challenging those historians who have pointed to Hood's perceived personality flaws, his alleged abuse of painkillers, and other unsubstantiated claims as proof of his incompetence as a military leader. This book takes into account Hood's entire life -- as a student at West Point, his meteoric rise and fall as a soldier and Civil War commander, and his career as a successful postwar businessman. In many ways, Hood represents a typical southern man, consumed by personal and societal definitions of manhood that were threatened by amputation and preserved and reconstructed by Civil War memory. Miller consults an extensive variety of sources, explaining not only what Hood did but also the environment in which he lived and how it affected him"--Jacket.

From the American Battlefield Trust, the collection of their popular battle maps of the Western Theater of the American Civil War. “I just love those maps that you guys send to me.” It is a phrase that the staff of the American Battlefield Trust hears on a weekly basis and the expression refers to one of the cornerstone initiatives of the organization, mapping the battlefields of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the American Civil War. The American Battlefield Trust is the premier battlefield preservation organization in the United States. Over the last thirty years the American Battlefield Trust and its members have preserved more than 52,000 acres of battlefield land across 143 battlefields, in 24 states—at sites such as Lexington & Concord, Vicksburg, Yorktown, Shiloh, and Gettysburg. Other than physically walking across the hallowed battle grounds that the American Battlefield Trust has saved, the best way to illustrate the importance of the properties that we have preserved is through our battle maps. Through the decades, the American Battlefield Trust has created hundreds of maps detailing the action at major battles. Now, for the first time in book form, we have collected the maps of some of the most iconic battles of the Western Theater of the Civil War into one volume. In Vol. 2 of our Battle Maps of the Civil War Series, you can follow the course of the war from Fort Sumter to the Surrender at Bennett Place. Study the major actions of the Western Theater from start to finish utilizing this unparalleled collection of maps.

Confederate Generals in the Western Theater ultimately comprise several volumes that promise a host of provocative new insights into not only the South's ill-fated campaigns in the West but also the eventual outcome of the larger conflict. --Book Jacket.